1956 -
Israeli Journalist.
Hass was born in 1956 in Jerusalem to European-Jewish parents who had survived the Holocaust. She studied history at the Hebrew and Tel Aviv universities. Hass joined Israel's most respected daily, Haaretz, as staff editor after the outbreak of the first uprising (Intifada) of 1987. In addition to her editing position, she started to write daily reports on and from Gaza in 1991.
Hass subsequently decided to move to Gaza Strip and lived there for four years, becoming the only Israeli journalist who lived in the occupied territories in order to cover Palestinian life under Israeli occupation. In Gaza, she wrote her book Drinking the Sea at Gaza: Days and Nights in a Land under Siege. The book contains a detailed description of Israeli occupation policies toward the Palestinians, and also includes a thorough analysis of the Israeli closure regime implemented since 1991 to restrict Palestinians' freedom of movement on the grounds of Israeli security concerns.
In January 1997, Hass moved to the West Bank to continue her coverage of occupation and the Oslo process from the city of Ramallah. In late 2002, she stopped writing daily news to focus on writing features and op-eds. In 2003, she published her second book, Reporting from Ramallah: An Israeli Journalist in an Occupied Land. The book is a collection of articles and features focused on Israel's repressive measure against Palestinians in the second intifada.
Hass's engaged and courageous reporting has won her numerous awards, including the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize in 2003.
Bibliography
Hass, Amira. Drinking the Sea at Gaza: Days and Nights in a Land under Siege, translated by Elana Wesley and Maxine Kaufman-Lacusta. New York: Metropolitan Books, 1999.
Hass, Amira. Reporting from Ramallah: An Israeli Journalist in anOccupied Land, edited and translated by Rachel Leah Jones. Los Angeles, CA, and New York: Semiotext (e); Cambridge, MA: Distributed by MIT Press, 2003.
— KHALED ISLAIH
